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Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship

We are a dedicated institute for student entrepreneurs across campus and beyond. We aim to maximize your success by fostering your entrepreneurial mindset, promote inter-disciplinary collaboration and provide support for the creation and development of your new ventures. Jumpstart your ideas and get involved today!

Tune in for excitement!

Passion. Potential. Pitches. Don't miss any of the 2025 New Venture Challenge excitement.

Tune in Friday, April 11 at 1 p.m. for great ideas and fierce competition. Then, join the judges, mentors, spectators and teams as they see who is going home with thousands of dollars in venture financing. The awards broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. and one team will walk away as the overall best venture. 

Start your entrepreneurial journey

Central Michigan University’s College of Business Administration is the home of the Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship and the first Department of Entrepreneurship in the state of Michigan. We are a student-centric hub where experiential, curricular, and external entrepreneurial opportunities intersect.

Our mission is to maximize student success by fostering a campus-wide entrepreneurial mindset that promotes inter-disciplinary collaboration and the creation of new ventures.

We aim to create innovative programming, boost cross-campus and ecosystem collaboration and provide a comprehensive mentoring program.

Our institute provides extracurricular opportunities and is open to all undergraduate and graduate CMU students.

Student opportunities

  • Meet experienced alumni, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors, and other business and political leaders.
  • Learn practical skills, innovative thinking, and connect with mentors and entrepreneurial resources.
  • Attend skill-building workshops and compete in pitch competitions and Hackathons.
  • Take part in special scholarship programs and travel experiences.
  • Pitch your venture at our signature New Venture Challenge event and compete for up to $20,000 in cash awards.

      Find your path

      Are you interested in becoming an entrepreneur?

      Every journey is unique. Explore the opportunities that interest you.

      Graduate student's research demonstrates benefits of civility and spirituality

      by Henry Heller

      Kelvin Uruk Nile King Byrd Ed.D. is a May 2023 graduate of the doctoral program in Educational Leadership. His research centers on college students' relationship with their spirit and mental health and use of spiritual self-care to better themselves in college.

      "My research explores the concept that when we are spiritually healthy this increases our mental well-being significantly. Mental well-being and spiritual health are best friends. They are highly compatible.”

      Spirituality is defined by Professor Uruk as “the utilization of spiritual principles to protect the human spirit.” This research demonstrates that the human spirit consists of (1) moral and ethical character and personality, (2) intelligence, decency, senses, feelings, and sensibilities, (3) religious principles, and (4) non-religious principles. He found that the human spirit is designed for people to use with decency, morality, and ethics.

      The research was conducted through several interviews with one college student. This student went through mental health difficulties in college and used spiritual health to transform his life. Professor Uruk explores how the student uses spiritual self-care to self-regulate during university life and intersectionality. Also, how the student demonstrates the power of spiritual self-care and spiritual redemption in this student. According to Professor Uruk, the definition of spiritual redemption is, “overcoming sub-optimal decisions with optimal spiritual decisions. This helps increase academic, physical, and mental well-being.”

      Spiritual self-care is defined by Professor Uruk as “respecting and nurturing the spirit, which can increase happiness.” He wants to invite all of society to embrace spiritual principles, religious or non-religious. These include hope, peace, joy, tenacity, work ethic, fulfillment, excitement, and personal happiness.

      This story is brought to you by the  Office of Research and Graduate Studies.

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